We all have multiple personalities. For example, many of us have a work personality and an "outside of work" personality. There is the side of ourselves people see at the business conference, and the one they see at the rock concert. Each facet of our personality can make us seem like different people, depending on what we are doing and thinking about.
Depending on our professions, we have a variety of different topics we are interested in at work. For example, I am interested in the technical aspects of what we do, like classification, the programming languages we use etc., as well as marketing aspects, such as competition, or the concept of viral growth. I am also on the boards of several companies, and since each company is quite different, each represents a different aspect of my personality.
If you are a developer, perhaps the different programming languages you use each day constitute an area of interest. If you are a VC, each of the companies you have invested in or are thinking about investing in may be a different area of interest, or a facet of your personality.
We also have different personalities when we are socializing, exercising, or relaxing. We all like different types of sports, some as spectators, some as participants. We may like mental exercises or games. Some of us may like movies, and others may like the theater.
These are all distinct "personalities," or interests, of ours. None of the various interests are necessarily related to each other. I may like both wrestling and ballet. Furthermore, since we are individuals, each of these interests is unique to us. For example, you and I may both like soccer, but you may like Brazilian soccer while I like European soccer.
Each of our unique (and perhaps potentially conflicting) personalities is in constant thirst for information. We always want to be on top of our work-related news while simultaneously wanting know how our favorite teams are doing, or what the latest ski equipment is. The information we look for may come from multiple domains: news, blogs, websites, a new book, etc.
There is also so much information available these days that it is very easy to get completely lost in it. For example, just for the news and blogs domain, my RSS reader produces hundreds of new items every day based on 10-20 feeds. I know there are at least a hundred feeds I need to be monitoring, but I don’t even have time to monitor the 10 or 20 I set up.
I need a personal assistant! One who knows exactly what I want, in fact what each of my different personalities want, and who can monitor all the different types of domains and report to me what I need to know exactly when I want to know it. Wait a minute though, this assistant needs to monitor hundreds or thousands, or maybe more sources for all the different personalities that I have.
I need an army of assistants!
-Cuneyt
